


Wild, Wicked, Wise

by butterflycollective



Category: General Hospital (TV 1963)
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Family Secrets, Multi, Mystery, Prologue, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26972755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflycollective/pseuds/butterflycollective
Summary: Alexis starts off drowning in Vodka at a bar with a bartender.  Past and present collide but what will the future hold?Borrowing lots of characters (inc other fandoms) for fun.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts in the present day but which present day?

Alexis blinked her eyes. She looked down at her vodka on the rocks. An alcoholic beverage suited to both her heritage and her mood.

Actually she wanted to forgo the rocks and drink it straight down like a truly exiled Russian but she had to stay sober enough to drive back to her current house, built on the ashes of her old one. Completely refurnished and restocked with everything she needed except alcohol.

Some other casualties of the lake house click boom …including a replica of that orange rug had just been left unreplaced. . She chose a Native American style rug to contrast with the new hardwood floor. 

"Alexis…"

She looked up and saw Michael McBride wiping down the bar. It hadn't been a busy night. No one had tried to hit on her or buy her a drink. No bar fights, no pool cues broken over heads, no corny music playing on the jukebox.

An unusually slow night in PC.

Reaching for her glass, she gulped the rest of the vodka down, the ice melding into the liquor bringing both chill and warmth to her throat. The numbness which hit the core of her chest, the sensations of overly taut muscles relaxing.

"I'll have another…."

Michael knit his brows.

"Really…first you go for the Vodka when you usually drink chardonnay that Scorpio keeps hidden in the cellar just for you…"

She wagged her finger.

"No not true…I also hit the Scotch and if I was really feeling like my world fell apart I'd be chugging the vodka out of the bottle."

He frowned, while he refreshed her drink.

"Your world falling apart. You keep your shit straight and in its proper place better than any other lady I know."

Alexis grimaced.

"Do you have to call me a lady? It sounds so…"

He leaned against the counter towards her.

"Sounds like what?"

She sighed, taking another swig of her drink.

"Like…like I'm nothing…like that. I'm a murderess for Christ sake…oh I probably shouldn't have said that but…you get my meaning?"

He eyed her carefully and she knew something she'd not meant to say had slipped enough to cause wariness to show on his face.

"Alexis…what's going on here? Your legal skills are slipping because you confessed to murder. I think you're okay though because the confidentiality between a bartender and his customer is as sacred as that in the confessional."

She shook her head slightly.

"Mike can I call you that? This town has way too many Michaels walking around. Anyway, there's a few things wrong with that analogy. Legally speaking…"

He looked crestfallen then burst waggled his eyes.

"Well...okay... I guess I'll have to marry you then. I still got the Grateful Dead tee-shirt somewhere and enough gas on the motorcycle to get us halfway to Vegas…."

Alexis sighed wistfully.

"Almost sounds tempting. I would love to get away for awhile. Get in a car and keep on driving until I reach an ocean…get on a boat and sail to Greece take a train or an oxen wagon over the mountains back to Russia where we came from…"

Mike eyed the half empty Vodka glass and then back at her face. "

"I'll take your word on it. Now on this marriage thing, I'm partly serious…."

She chuckled despite herself.

"If you knew me, you know I only marry for business, never for love. Well except for that last time. But I'm focusing on my career right now..except I don’t really have one.."

He arched his eyes.

"Now I know there's a story behind that."

She picked up her glass again.  
"Pour your poison of the week and then we'll talk."

He shook his head.

"Bartender can't sample the merchandise. House rule."

Her mouth almost curved into a smile.  
"I won't tell if you don't tell…now pour a glass…"

He hesitated then shrugged.

"Oh what the hell? Besides I know where the boss keeps his best stash."

She watched him walk away in his khaki pants and black long sleeved shirt that molded to a rather impressive looking build. Mike clearly had his own rules for mixing and matching his outfits but she'd grown used to it after seeing the way her latest ex husband had been dressing lately. She shifted on her barstool relieved that she'd opted for her black denim jeans and matching woolen sweater. At least the winter chill hadn't followed her in the bar. Mike returned with an exotic looking bottle with Cyrillic writing on it.

"What is that?"

Mike shrugged.

"Have no idea? Can't read Cyrillic. Just hope that it's not going to kill me going down."

He poured a glass and she watched him carefully as he sipped slowly then slugged it down. Slapping his glass on the counter with a satisfied sigh. She tilted her face.

"So how did it…go down?"

He grinned.

"Smooth as the ice on Spoon Lake…just before the sun rises."

She pursed her lips and then rested her chin on her hand, watching him pour himself another glass.  
He put the glass back down, wiped his mouth and looked back at her.

"So back to what we were talking about," he said, "So why do you want to cut out of PC? Isn't this town wild enough for you?"

She bit her lip, whether to stifle a giggle or a sob she couldn't guess. She had been holding it all together for so long, with no one to talk to or even to notice that she had been thinking anything at all. It's not like anyone ever asked how she was feeling about anything and if they had…what would she answer.  
She didn't honestly know. Right now she didn't care.  
Mike tried again.

"Alexis…seriously you'd leave us. You'd leave me after you worked so tirelessly to free me from that hell hole they put me in at Pentonville. It really was all one big misunderstanding on their part. Really, I committed no crimes but I’ve been remiss. I mean I haven't really had a chance to thank you properly yet."

She smiled fingering the rim of her glass. He had been the final case of her not so sterling law career. 

"Your check cleared. That's thanks enough. It'll help buy an oak desk I've been eying for my new office."

Mike smirked.

"Just a desk… So Alexis why do you feel like splitting? I mean you don't usually run away from anything…well except at one of your weddings."

She arched a brow. He shrugged. 

“I read the trades and since I’m old school, microfilm. You have an entire storeroom dedicated to you filled with boxes of files.”

She sighed. Nothing surprised her anymore. Her crimes were on the public record. Her attempts weren’t anything anyone needed to know. But he had brought up a tired subject for her. Not surprising, hadn’t he been working as a bartender at Ned’s last wedding reception?

"Ned still hasn't forgiven me for that and it's been over 15 years. Get over it already. Just this morning…I ran into him with Olivia at the MC and he brought it up and chided me for being petrified of becoming a member of his family. The thought…I'm a Cassadine, the Qs are what our ancestors would round up, slice up and serve as an appetizer with the caviar."

He grinned again.

"I love it when you talk culinary…especially since you can't cook."

She shrugged, and felt herself tensing again so she reached for her Vodka. That secret of hers had slipped out into the public domain years ago. 

"Good one…you're witty tonight…and cute…"

He grew serious.

"What's going on here Alexis? Why are you hanging out here cheering me up with your presence instead of home with your family?"

She shrugged.

"My family…You do know Molly hasn't spoken to me in three months since I blew up her wedding. TJ still hasn’t forgiven her for her...well her new boyfriend.”

Sadness filled her heart where it'd felt empty without it. She brushed a tendril of hair off her face. Sometimes she missed her youngest. But really shacking up with… She couldn’t finish that sentence and keep her homicidal urges in check. Blame it on one half of her family tree. 

"What about Sam?"

Alexis smiled slightly.

"She's working a large caseload, trying to get over losing Jason, all over again. Now that his killer is locked up preparing to be shipped off to Super Max in Colorado. It doesn't help that…her father was working for or with him and Sonny...well it could be Brother Sonny soon."

"You mean Julian Jerome."

Alexis made a face.

"Who else? I don't want to talk about him. I want to talk about something else…"

Mike watched as she slid the glass towards him for a refill. He stopped it.

"No Alexis…I'm cutting you off and I'm getting you something to eat. Some of Mac's famous tapas. Just need to heat them up…"

She shook her head.

"I'm not hungry, but I am thirsty."

He sighed.

"What's going on here? You dumped that mobster or two and it's probably for the best. Sounds like trouble and anyone who would drop you…for a…"

"Younger model? She's pretty too…and apparently she was fertile…. Par for the course for how the tastes of most of my exes’ run and Olivia and I have shared three men."

"Alexis…if the guy was too drunk or too stupid to slap on a glove…well he's going to pay the piper for at least 18 years."

She winced.

"Did I say she was younger and pretty? She cooks really, really well. She cleans, I'm sure she does the laundry too."

She raised an index finger in the air.

"I can't do any of that and it's my fault. Hell everything's my fault in this town. Let's see…"

She waggled the fingers on one hand and started touching them with an index finger doing a countdown.

"Ric blames me for thinking with my…parts and subjecting to a hellish existence in witness protection, Molly blames me for not siding with her daddy not so dearest…Sometimes I'm tempted to tell her a little bit more about her daddy…but I can't hurt her even though she's shunned me….Sam isn't happy with anyone right now because of Jason…Lucy called me crazy…Olivia I can't remember what she's blaming me for… but she shrieked at me anyway….Ned…for not being perfect…like a Stepford wife 10 years ago….Sonny…Liz…this list is getting really really long."

Mike smiled.

"You can't be responsible for all of that. I mean people do their own shit, they gotta own it. Take your mobster boyfriend. He almost got you killed when his stunt got your house blown up. You give him some shade for lying…he goes off on some pity party, gets trashed and knocks up some low class mobster apologist."  
Alexis looked down at her glass.

"Olivia's…nice. She's what you'd call…a ride and die chick? She certainly was with Sonny. She didn't turn on him until he cheated on her. Maybe that's what he's wanted all along. I wouldn't accept his lifestyle and his half-truths…and you know what they say? Be careful what you wish for sure…when he finally did tell me the truth."

"The truth hurts doesn't it?"

She blew air out of her mouth.

"Well, what can I say? He framed Ric who's the scum of the earth but still Molly's father and he worked with Jerry Jacks who poisoned my daughters and the rest of the town during that water toxin scheme. Then we have Helena…that link hasn't been proven yet but she's tight with both Faison and Jerry so…did I tell you she threatened my daughters in front of him? Then there's…who's the other one…it's like a whole legion of villains has descended on PC in the past few months."

Mike sipped his drink listening. His thick brows furrowed.

"Okay you got rid of him. If he wants to knock up some bimbo that's on him. Look Alexis, you're a smart, sexy, beautiful woman. Yeah you're complicated and a bit darker than most women out there but that just makes you more…intriguing."

She shook her head.

"No man in my life has ever been able to handle that part of me. I'm fine as long as I do what they want whether it's to be the perfect Q spouse or the ride and die chick of a mobster…Olivia she can give Julian what I can't…she'll never question his choices….he'll never resent her like he does me because I wouldn't take him back."

"You are…complicated but look where you came from. A murderous bunch of cutthroat exiled members of some Russian family. They killed your mother…hid you in the house…how were you ever going to be normal in that kind of place? Survival comes first then luxuries like feelings…desires and love."

She considered thinking that the mysterious liquor Mike was drinking had branded him with some kind of special wisdom. That and she'd spilled most of her life story when she'd been trading shots with him back when the dive had been called Jakes. Even the parts of it which read like a fractured fairy tale.

"I didn't even remember I had a sister…and when Jax, you know my favorite ex-husband brought her to me, I…..but I lost her…"

The reality of that hit her again, and she stopped talking while Mike drunk from his own glass. Kristina, gunned down on her own wedding day. 

"I don't want to lose my children. Kristina is off living her own life trying to forget she's a mobster's daughter with some hippy named Shiloh…Molly hates me and wants to drop my last name from her own legally and her father's drafting up the papers…and Sam…"

"It's going to be okay Alexis…you're the strongest woman I ever met."

She sighed, her shoulders drooping.

"I don't feel that way right now…but thanks for trying to cheer me up."

He reached out to stroke her face gently.

"I mean it Alexis…you got cut a raw deal being surrounded by a bunch of ingrates who are so self-centered they can't even remember how hard you fought to keep them alive…hell weren't you cut nearly in half with a knife and sown back together with fishing line while having Molly?"

She knit her brow suddenly remembering that day in the tunnel after the train crash. Ric suddenly forgot he'd been throwing his mistress in her face and how she wasn't cold and frigid in the sack like his wife…at least his mistress he borrowed from Sonny's collection had been slowly dying at the time…was it mean to say that? Or that Ric and other men had carried her and Molly while stepping on top of her cooling corpse? 

"Yeah well Ric rewarded me for taking his miserable ass back by…I'm not going to go there that's water under the bridge…."

He touched his hand and she felt some degree of calmness spread through her.

"Alexis…Ric is a lowlife sociopath whose obsession with his half-brother borders on psychosis…it has nothing to do with you. He's insisting he's reformed when in reality selective memory of some prominent architects on this canvas have simply white washed him."

She sighed.

"I feel like I can't even tell anyone or even remember what he did to me and my children. It's all about him being the victim and I being the evil woman who thought with her vay-jay and wasn't loyal enough to him…even after all he did to me…why am I talking so much and why are you listening to me?"

He paused and she felt genuinely puzzled. Her concerns, her needs and wants had become bad words to her most of her life.

"Because you're more interesting than most people and in this town that's saying a lot…"

She smiled at him for that.

"That's nice of you to say…now where are those tapas?"

Mike brought the reheated tapas on a plate to the bar. Alexis eyed them with keen interest as they approached. The smell wafting from where they lay underneath a loosely place paper towel made her stomach rumble.  
She hadn't eaten much since this morning. After burning toast and spilling her coffee, she gave up, picking up her briefcase and coat and headed out the door to her office. She'd been in court all day arguing for continuances and getting on the judge's nerves. All of that happening in her own head of course since she was barred from trying cases. Lunch had been a hardboiled egg and an apple bought off of a food cart and…it'd all gone downhill from there.

Mike lifted the paper towel off of the tapas and Alexis' eyes widened as the full aroma of the food hit her. They looked absolutely delicious.

"Made especially for you…dig in…"  
She did just that reaching for one of them, placing them on a napkin that Mike handed to her.  
Potatoes and chili peppers, a hint of tomato. She'd first sampled the dish when she'd attended a language program at a university in Salamanca, the camarero has explained that they were popular in Spain, mixing and matching them over lively conversations until they were gone.  
Pity that for all its sophistication PC had yet to open a Tapa Bar. She'd suggested it to Mac that he add it to his cuisine for his customers. He said he'd give it a shot and the appetizer had become quite popular especially when sold half price on Tapa Tuesdays.

Grateful, he'd given her a piece of the action.

Mac was a genius in the kitchen. She had learned that during the two year period when they were kind of dating…or talking about dating over hundreds of cups of both good and bad coffee while discussing their families.  
Both of them were single parents though Mac had turned out to be a much better parent than she could ever be. Mac's step daughter Maxie loved him and spent time with him when she was trying to not be seen with Nathan...oh wait was it someone else?  
Mac was also a really nice guy and that was a problem for her. Fortunately Felicia had whisked back into his life and the two got married over a year ago, so she'd never been able to damage him. 

Mike picked up a tapa and bit into it, clearly enjoying it.

"Damn these are good…so seriously if you leave town a lot of people will miss you."

She arched a brow.

"Mike that's very nice of you to say but if I drove my car into a ditch and died, it would take over a month before someone noticed and Anna put out an APB on me."

Mike frowned.

"I'd notice if you were missing."

She bit into her tapa again. Damn these things were delicious, as she finished one, licked off her fingers and then reached for another.

"That's sweet Mike. Now pour me another glass of that vodka."

He held up a hand.

"Alexis…I told you I was cutting you off."

She smirked.

"I did what you wanted. I am having some of Mac's delicious tapas remembering what it was like when I tasted my first one…and my second…and my third off of a rather impressive set of abs of a soccer player who…."

Mike chortled.

"Alexis…did I hear you right?" I never pictured you as the type that would seduce a man through his abs."

She smiled, as he finally refilled her glass.

"I've always had a weakness for them. Another transgression of mine that I've got to get over. But Rodrigo was a lot of fun"

"Sounds like a great time…."

She smiled.

"I got all the major food groups that night."

He tilted his face, pushing her glass towards her.

"Is that the vodka or the tapas?"

She licked her lips eying the plate again.

"It's you Mike, like I said, you're kind of cute and you listen to me without putting in a 'but' in less than five…"

"Minutes…"

"Words…I do appreciate that and I like you and I've always found bearded men attractive…"

He sighed.

"That's definitely the vodka…"

She shook her head.

"No it's you and your bar side manner…"

She slid off of her barstool and landed a bit wobbly on her boots. Mike eyed her dismount critically.

"Alexis…I think you've had a bit much…"

She shook her head.

"Nah…the party's just getting started. I'm going to put on some music…. "

The worn out juke box boasted over 500 songs most of them reflecting Mac's eclectic choices from country western, to punk rock to Barry Manilow and just about every melody, dirge, ballad and instrumental in between.

She fished for a quarter and stuck it in the machine, She couldn't decide on a song because she didn't know why…so she just pushed some buttons randomly. She heard the whirl of the machine and the click of the record dropping. Then the music started playing, a familiar ballad song filled the empty bar.

_"We're caught in a trap. I can't walk out.  
Because I love you too much baby…"  
Why can't you see? What you're doing to me?  
When you don't believe a word I'm saying…'" _

Oh god…bad selection. Damn, she wanted to get her money back. She tried to find the buttons to get the juke box machine to stop playing.

"Alexis…what are you doing?"

She looked back at Mike who still stood behind the bar looking amused. She glared back at him.

"I'm trying to get the machine to stop playing that damn song…how do I make it stop?"

He sighed.

"Pull the plug…but go easy baby, Mac would dock my pay until the next millennia if it breaks again."

She tried to find the damn plug but the cord was under the damn machine. So she did the next best thing. She started kicking it with her boot.

The machine quaked but refused to budge. Elvis Presley's angst filled voice warbled on, about suspicious minds and dreams and loves…blah blah and other nonsense. Elvis deserved another kick for that.

The machine shook and still the music played.

_If only our love survived  
I'd dry the tears from your eyes  
Just don't let a good thing die  
Well honey, you know I would never lie to you _

She stopped kicking it, her body tensing up.  
"Oh bullshit…there never was a time…that you didn't lie to me…"  
Another boot clad kick of the machine even harder, but this time the machine hit back, sending her sprawling backward off balance.  
Just when she thought she'd crash to the ground bruising her butt and her dignity, she felt a pair of strong hands catch her, gripping her waist tightly.

"Hey, don't break the floor…"

She looked down at it and saw it had turned into a repetitive pattern of black and white squares interlinked together into a game board and she was at the Museum of Mayhem. Standing surrounded by two dimensional versions of PC’s most notorious villains. 

Cesar Faison. Helena Cassadine and her twisted son, Stavros. Jerry Jacks, with that half smile. Franco. And...some cutouts which for now were blank canvases waiting to be determined. Who would they be?

They were like pieces on the board but what was the game? Then she remembered something someone had once told her. 

“Never play checkers when the game is chess….”

Then everything changed.


	2. Chapter 2

The flowers that grew wildly in that corner of the nursery were the ones that made Alexis smile.

Not something she did very often these days. But something about the way the vines pushed their way through the labyrinth of the old growth and intertwined with the wire fencing, a test in perseverance and strength.

She had been working at the garden place for a couple of months while attending summer school in a small town just an hour's drive from Monterey up the winding coast to a beautiful village. She roomed in a Victorian style cottage part of a complex of them sprinkled over the toned acreage portion of the Rosewood Academy’s campus. She lived in close proximity to two other students, Linda a vivacious girl from Staten Island and Faith a shy blonde haired student from a town populated mostly by prison inmates in a town nestled in the Rockies. All three of them at 18, had graduated from high school and were trying to figure out what to do with the rest of their lives outside institutionalized learning. Linda seemed to be the most resolved in what her future had in store for her, wanting to be a doctor. If Faith had definitive plans she kept them to herself, probably restricting any thoughts she had in the leather journal she kept in her bedroom. 

Alexis knew what was in store for her during the next seven years. Undergraduate studies at Yale University majoring in business or economics and studying pre-law. After she graduated with honors of course, off to another Ivy League university to get her law degree. All this had been decided for her before she even entered high school by her cousin, Stefan Cassadine. 

She had done what was expected of her during her life as she remembered it. She also learned in high school that there was a huge difference between the best laid plans written for one’s future and what life had in store for you instead. It had taken her the last two years of her highschool tenure to get her life’s plan back on schedule.  
Still, every so often when someone noticed her, they would ask her what she wanted to do with her life. A question she was unable to answer, as foreign to her as the Greek and Russian languages had been to her when she had first arrived on the Island. They had let her keep the English but had washed away any trace of her fluency in...she couldn’t even remember what tongue that had been at this point. 

Except occasionally in her dreams. 

Alexis had no idea what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. She had left the Island in the dead of night, packing a small bag and getting in a private plane to speed away moments before they had arrived to get her. She had asked, even begged Stefan for that summer away and after months of that he had given in, with conditions attached of course. 

The jet had landed several times in airports in obscure cities simply to refuel. A blip on the flight plans submitted to ATC in the airports that had that.  
There had been a couple close calls in the beginning or maybe it had been what Stefan called her vigilance speaking. Though some behavioral experts might call it paranoia, Cassadines had it in spades. 

She had ducked in the taxi that had picked her up from that final airport, because she saw a dark sedan with the two men inside, she knew had been hired to look for her. That’s what her well trained mind had said. Her guts were too tied up in knots to give her a useful reading. She was relieved when it didn’t follow her onto a highway but kept heading down a street towards the middle of the unnamed city. 

Stefan had made all the arrangements as promised after she had finally persuaded him. So far it had worked out though as always she waited for that other boot to drop. The one that had been on her slim neck as long as she remembered. 

She didn’t know when she had first entertained the thought of just taking some time off from her life. She had just returned to her home late at night after one of her scheduled outings somewhere off the Island and decided she didn't want to die. Not without knowing what was really out there. Anything that was better than the world that had raised her. 

She certainly didn't want to be tortured first.

It hadn't been just her enemies that she wanted to avoid; it had also been those closest to her most of all  
.  
Alexis sighed, pushing all those thoughts out of her mind to focus on her job, arranging the potted herbs on the shelves outside of where the wild flowers, in a plethora of different hues arranged themselves through nature's design.

Basil, Rosemary, Summer Savory and Oregano, their scents intermingling in the warm and damp afternoon air in a way that made her heady. She grew her own herbs in a plot on the sides of the cottage and even or maybe because of the salt that wafted in with the breezes to the shore, they had grown heartily. She had dug up a cookbook inside the storage shed behind the cottage and had picked out a couple of recipes to try out once they were ready to be harvested. A rather strange cookbook because it included recipes for things that weren’t meant to be eaten. At least not at a formal dining room table. 

That is, if she remained here that long to watch them grow before autumn dragged her back on her schedule. Unless she were discovered earlier... She didn't know if anyone would come looking for her up here but she kept her eyes and ears tuned to any hints that someone would appear.

"Hey, you are going to the party later?"

Alexis looked up and saw Linda, dressed in denim overalls and a cotton shirt. She spent most of her time working in the rose section. Alexis shrugged at her, not having made any decisions. She was leaning towards opting out of any socializing and finishing the book in one of her required courses. 

"I don't think so…I think I'll just head home today…Do some studying."

"Oh come on…there's going to be barbecue and everyone will be there. Not much else to do out here in the boondocks. Octavia is going to play her flute or whatever it’s called."

A clarinet actually, not an instrument Alexis would choose herself to play on such a day as this one. But Octavia also owned a lyre that she played in the evenings with her windows open. 

Alexis had to smile at those memories. She had heard her playing once in the area that housed the fruit trees where her cottage stood, and had followed the melody through the rows of oranges, lemons, peaches and figs. Octavia was talented with her music but really, Alexis would just go home and curl up on the veranda swing with a good book and some purplish plums to eat from the tree in front of the cottage.

"Well you're going to miss out on the bonfire later on…and the sing along."

Alexis sighed, the woman's pitch wearing her down a bit. It might be good to get out once in a while and forget about everything just for a little while. She had grown up near enough to a coast far away from here to sit on the beach while growing up and she had great memories of swimming in the warm ocean, lying on the sand afterward while a breeze softly blew her dry and of long walks down the coast looking out at the sail boats bobbing on the water.

So...she finally sighed.

"Okay…maybe I'll think about it."

A smile lit up Linda's face.

"Great…I'll pencil you in…you bringing a date?"

Alexis just looked at her, suddenly speechless. That question hadn't intended to be a loaded one but there was no way for the other woman to know.  
She shook her head, an easy enough answer to the question.

"Well…there's going to be plenty of single guys including from a college retreat program and you're pretty enough to attract a few."

Alexis wanted to roll her eyes at that, though she had been told often enough that she had been beautiful and with her dark wavy hair that framed her strongly lined face, she had turned a head or two. She kept her body toned with exercise, from running to yoga to kick boxing under Stefan’s guidance, but soft enough to hone the edges down into nice curves.

But she wasn't out looking for complications in her life right now and bringing a guy into what was complicated enough, no that wouldn't be an option. Besides, nothing could make up for what she missed…and what she had run away from at the same time.

She knew that the man she thought she must love and the one she had betrayed were out there. 

No, best to keep life as simple as possible and to keep herself as separate from the world around her as much as she could do. Still a small part of her was tempted. But her sensible side honed by life experiences won out. 

She shook her head bemused at Linda and returned to her garden work. It kept her grimy, it messed up her nails, something awful and her muscles ached at the end of the day but she felt content…happiness wasn't exactly a presence in her life. 

The wheelbarrow she needed to go get the next batch of plants to place on the shelves for sale awaited so she got up, brushed her pants and went to push it back to the inventory section.

The man that had been silently watching her from behind the labyrinth of wild flowers followed her, stealth enough to not attract her attention. If she had known he was there, he guessed his presence wouldn’t be welcome. 

Alexis walked to gather some more pots of herbs to place in the wheelbarrow to take back when suddenly her body stiffened.  
The breeze wafted in the usual saltiness of the ocean, intermingled with flowers of different kinds but now…she detected a man's cologne. She looked around her carefully but all she saw where the leaves on the azalea bushes stirring and saw orange butterflies lighting on flowers.

But damn for a moment there, she had been taken back in time, to where she had been lying on a blanket on the beach in some far off place, while in his arms. He had been on top of her, his mouth kissing hers while he wrapped her legs around him. They had been hidden in the shadows so that no one on the cliff looking down could see them but if someone had walked along the shore…she sucked in her breath now at the risks they had taken together then when to be discovered in the throes of passion would have been dangerous, even deadly. But they hadn't been able to help themselves, finally surrendering to what had been building up between them for so long…every time they had looked at each other had been highly charged…like the air before a summer storm.

And when they touched…she licked her lips just thinking about how it had felt to be with him, not like anyone else she could imagine  
But it hadn't been real and by the time he had been done with his assignment on the Island and it was time to go, everything had come crashing down.  
She felt her eyes sting and when she smelled the air again, it simply felt fresh and fragrant with its usual scents to be found in a coastal village. The cologne…a fragment of an old memory popping up for some reason….because the man in these memories that she kept hidden was separated from her in greater ways than distance.

The man watched her as she stood still and he wondered if he had given himself away because the look in her eyes just then. He knew what that look meant.  
He sighed as she resumed her collection of some plants to put in a wheelbarrow and knew the time for watching her had passed.  
He reproached himself silently, knowing that the reasons he gave himself for hunting her down were only partly unselfish. It had been several months since he'd seen her and during that time…he had driven himself crazy trying not to think about her. The last words they had spoken between them…had been harsh but he didn't want them to stand between them forever. If his life were taken…he didn't want her to remember that last night as his legacy.  
No, he had traveled all this way and he intended to do what he set out to do which was to warn her about the man they thought they had just put away. And if he looked at her, and his first instinct was to press her against a wall and kiss that lovely mouth of hers again while he stroked her silky skin beneath her work clothes, he would have to keep that to himself.

He knew enough and remembered enough to know she was in no mood for any of that. She might slap him just for showing up again but he had to take that chance because she meant more to him than anything.

Even his own life, he'd decided.

He watched her curl her hair back behind her ears almost absently as she began to push the wheelbarrow back to where he'd seen her earlier. He took a deep breath to prepare for the moment he was to show himself to her. There was so much to say to her but he had to focus on the words she needed to hear to save her life.

Alexis settled in to place the potted herbs in the lower shelves and the coolness of the bricks she sat on, contrasted with the afternoon heat. It was early summer in these parts and the days had been hotter than usual, with a hint of humidity…still comfortable because the oceanic breezes were reliable this time of year as Octavia had told her. She smelled some of the herbs before she put them on the shelf and made a mental note to add English Thyme and Spicy Globe Basil to her collection.

Thyme had been potted in a ceramic shelf outside the compound where she had grown up on the Island. This man had stayed in a bungalow while working as a pilot for one of the wealthiest men in the world, Prince Mikkos Ivanovich Cassadine . She would snip off some bits of the plants to spice up dishes that he cooked during the quiet times they spent together under the radar of their boss. She lived in the main house in a wing that she had lived in her whole life but towards the end of his stay, she had been slipping out at night to spend them with him.

God, she wished she had known what would happen when the toughest decision in her life had to be made in the aftermath. But thinking about it now couldn't change the past.

She had to focus on the present and not think too much about the future either that had been laid out for her. That was what she was thinking when a man stepped out of the shadows of the wild flowers and she saw him as if he'd never been gone.

"Hi Alexis…"

She just stared at him, her heart beating quickly…wondering if it were just a daydream.


End file.
